Document Actions

Network-based interactive navigation and analysis of large biological datasets

it - Information Technology, 57(1):37-48.

Abstract

Over the last decade, advances in high-throughput technologies
have resulted in a flood of new biological data. Here, individual
samples can extend up into terabyte size. While potential applications
are broad, ranging from biotechnology to medical applications, the
analysis of these datasets poses massive challenges.
In order to make use of the produced terabytes of data, these datasets need to
be integrated, need to be mapped onto existing biological knowledge,
and need to be explored by experts.
We present UniPAX and BiNA, a scalable system for the integration
and analysis of high-throughput data (genomics, transcriptomics,
proteomics, and metabolomics) in a network context. A central data
warehouse holds the core dataset. A flexible middleware can execute
custom queries on these datasets and
communicate with our visual analytics tool BiNA, the Biological Network
Analyzer. We demonstrate how the combination of these tools permits
an efficient analysis of large-scale datasets for medical applications.